Monica Khalique
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Research Mentor(s): Vasileios Tzoumas
Co-Presenter: Yanyu, Chen
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Aerospace / Engineering
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Oral5
Session: Session 4 – 2:40pm – 3:30 pm
Room: Breakout room 4
Authors: Daniel Bernstein, Yanyu Chen, Lihan Lian, Laasya Chukka, Monica Khalique, Andrew Zhaw, Vasileios Tzoumas
Presenter: 2
Abstract
Drones of the future will play an important role in many areas like package delivery, surveillance, and search and rescue. To perform such important tasks, they should have strong resilience against system and mechanical failures, unparalleled agility in complex environments, and the ability to be efficient at all stages of the flight. However, current drones are limited to rigid bodies which constrain their abilities to adapt to different environments and deal with possible failures or other problems encountered at different stages of the flight. This project contributes steps towards novel drones with morphable bodies that are more reliable, agile, and efficient. Beginning with an extensive literature review into pre-existing drone designs, the project began with the design and build of our own drone with morphable capabilities to test such aspects. The project coupled a gimbal design for each propeller with four foldable arms powered by servos to provide continuous 360-degree thrust vectoring while being able to change sizes and shapes during the flight. The morphability aspect can provide more than a 30% decrease in quadrotor footprint and the ability to morph into a tricopter in the case of a single-arm failure. Further, the thrust vectoring allows for more efficient flight and for various maneuvers impossible to standard quadrotors. The project also developed a simulator able to effectively simulate the movement present in the physical quadrotor. Considering that the drone is in the prototyping state, results are to be determined; however, with the currently developed models, they anticipate to be promising.
Engineering, Interdisciplinary
